From day one it’s been our mission to bring you community journalism, created by locals, for locals. We believe strongly that homegrown journalism is at the heart of an informed public. The funding that we raise over the next few weeks will set us up for 2022, allowing us to continue filling a critical need - Rebuilding Business in the Peak to Peak.

Here are just a few examples of how our reporting made an impact this past year:

We have covered over one hundred businesses over the last year.

We have covered over one thousand news stories.

We have big plans for the upcoming year, including covering every businesses in the entire Peak to Peak region. As well as continuing to cover the news you love from Allenspark to Central City, with all of the communities in between.

Our Podcast will feature a business every week, music stories, stories of locals, events and more.

We have News & Brews scheduled at least once per month. The next one is Thursday, November 18, 2021, at 5 p.m. at Very Nice Brewing Company. This is an opportunity to sit down with one of our staff and talk about local news.

But we can’t do any of this without you.

This is critical work - the kind that strengthens our community. Building back business after almost two years of a global pandemic.

I hope you will consider donating on Giving Tuesday to one of our local campaigns. Check out more info here https://givebutter.com/RebuildingP2P. To donate by text (202) 858-123

This week I want to say a BIG thanks to a few people. Today, I’m focusing on newspaper people (paid, volunteer and just people that make a difference with their advice and guidance). THANKS to each and every one of you!

Forgive my rambling. I have a lot to say and I’m just going with it!

Kirsten Eileen Springer for help sorting out a bunch of lists, billing and more. You’ve been a huge help! You are taking a huge weight off my shoulders. Thanks for being our office assistant/billing coordinator and advertiser organizer.

Chayton Tsela Alo for working on a different list and helping me move forward with some website stuff, business directory stuff and more. I look forward to learning more about websites and story extraction. Thanks for working with us.

George M. Blevins. For the project we are working on. Thank you.

Rob Savoye for help with other (other) website stuff. Thank you for your continued guidance and expertise. And for dealing with web people and knowing what to ask them. And helping transfer domain names and a whole lot of other computer stuff.

Cynthia Diane Davis and Arthur DeVitalis for helping with all of my questions (always). For answering the phone when I need to talk to someone that understand the woes of the publishing world. And for setting me up with my subscription to their website. And for helping the site transition back seamlessly in late December. And for Podcast. The Podcast was truly the brainchild of these two.

John Scarffe and Anne Scarffe for allowing me to make crazy story requests, last minute, covering them anyways and for helping me with grants. And for covering almost all government stories and Gilpin School Board.

Sal DeVincenzo Photography and Karen DeVincenzo contribute photos whenever I ask (Sal takes incredible photos), and have submitted several local stories.

Sara Sandstrom who still does first edit on almost everything. Sara has been here for many years now and brings a thoughtfulness to the paper that I don’t always see without her. Sara puts up with midnight emails, last minute proof changes, constant requests to just do “that one story” for this week (on a Tuesday when most sane people are asleep). For being a good role model and helping to keep me sane.

Lynn Hirshman for catching the tiniest edits and not telling me I’m an idiot for missing them. Lynn catches much more than I ever have. She often does a late edit on Tuesday. She’s an hour ahead of us and still hangs in there to make sure the paper looks great.

Jamie Lammers is a staff member that writes a lot of music, covers feature news, events, staff bios and more. He also does a lot of the Podcast each week. Look for quite a few in the next month as we wrap up 2021 and look forward to 2022.

Dave Gibson for big, bright photos and great local stories. Dave is a quiet guy. He’s not on Facebook. But he loves covering sports, events and news. He takes on projects that are probably way outside his comfort zone, and completes them with finesse.

Curt Halsted for bringing us photos of artist of the month, smiling kids coming and going and a new perspective on the Gilpin School.

Susan Kelly covers random stories when I need someone with an inside track. Sometimes library, Nederland Seniors, Pickleball, Art at the Center and more.

Mindy Leary has stepped into covering Timberline and really gets good information from each meeting. She takes good inside photos (no easy task) and knows so many of the board members, she pulls these together and sends them in late on Tuesday nights to hit a Wednesday paper.

Patrice LeBlanc has been covering Central City Council for a few years off and on. She also has done several business stories, podcasts and event coverage. Patrice takes great photos and digs into what is happening in Central City.

Charles Smith has been covering circulation for over 3 years. He picks up the papers in Boulder, delivers across the Nederland and Gilpin routes. He writes and shares stories of plays and music. Chip is a right hand man and awesome to have on the team!

Kirk C. Watkins covers pretty much all of NW Boulder County. He picks up papers in Nederland and delivers to Ward, Gold hill, Jamestown, Ferncliff, Allenspark and more. He covers stories on the businesses and people of these communities.

Omayra Acevedo has been writing the Discover Colorado column for several years. She provides great coverage of a whole bunch of places I really want to check out. She also covers occasional feature stories.

Karen Anderson is our Astrologist. She has been writing the column for far longer than I have been at the paper. She turns it in like clockwork, every month. She offers readings in Nederland and private readings as well.

Doug Brightwood is of course my hubby. He writes music columns about once a month. He helps me with ad content. He labels newspapers besides me, has done many pickups and drop offs. He helps me keep my sanity (most important). And does all the things in our house that I can’t do when I’m staring at this puzzle each week, trying to make all the pieces fit.

Mark Cohen writes Diversions, when we’re lucky. He also writes very witty stories that seem to be based on his true life and off the wall things that have happened to him.

Gary Cutler writes Trooper Tips, the only syndicated column we carry. It’s a very important column that always has great, logical information to share with our communities all over the place.

Gail Parsons Eddy writes Tech Trends. Tech Trends is a monthly column about.. well.. tech stuff. It always features a local perspective and shares a lot of super information I never knew.

Jack Gaffney has been on board for a while now. He writes a music column each month that is very informative and shares a totally different perspective about music. He also teaches piano locally.

Derek Ridgley writes Extrospectives. This column is a look at current events, from a local standpoint. His work is well prepared and he shares a lot of wonderful information.

Alexander Joseph has been writing our Poetry Corner for quite some time now. He also teaches in our local high school and shares his love of poetry with our Nederland kids.

Monica LaSalle has been writing since 2018. Of course she stepped in to help when our beautiful Barbara Lawlor passed. And she has been here ever since. She covers some of the police reports and also features.

John Mackay is one of our newer staff members. He writes Mountain Folk Tales, with a Ned twist called Nedbits. He has a knack for really sharing who the story is about and how their lives have impacted so many around the mountains.

Pam Harris Oden writes the monthly column called Pam’s Pantiques. This is a column about antiques and treasures and what it takes to find them in random homes, sheds, barns and other locations.

John McGinley has been covering the weather for a lot longer than I have been here. He features a wrap up of the prior month and a forecast of the next one.

Amy Elizabeth Skinner has just joined us to write a monthly column about mental health. Her first one will print in December. We can’t wait to read it!

Brooke Perry (CU Boulder) is our college intern for the semester. She covers anything we give her. She has done some features, A lot of business news, staff bios, podcasts and more.

Alex Jaffe (NMSHS) is an intern from Nederland that covers school news, with a lot of sports coverage. This is Alex’s second year with us.

Aya Pelkum Donahue (NMSHS) is also an intern from Nederland covering music, theater, new teachers and some academic news.

Brianna Rice-Dietz (GHS) is our Gilpin intern. Bree covers sports, school news and has done several business features in Central City.

Hayden HardtZeman (my youngest son) for hours and hours of labeling, delivering papers, organizing archive boxes, organizing pretty much everything around me. Listening to me complain. Making dinner so I can stay focused. You rock.

Asher, Allison, Zahra, Lauren, Tyler and all the kids that have helped with the archive over the last few months. Thanks for kicking the project off right by moving some of the boxes to get me started.

There are more that submit occasional stories. And some that work behind the scenes on other newspaper related work. And a few new people we plan to welcome after Thanksgiving.

ALL of these incredible people are the reason the newspaper is alive today, at this moment in time. ALL equally important. Spokes of the wheel that keep the newspaper rolling. Each and every one of you contribute some part of this. It couldn’t happen without each of you!!

THANK YOU! Truly. You ARE The Mountain-Ear.

#newspaperlife #themountainear #attitudeofgratitude